Luck Or Duck
by pekeleke
Summary: Harry Potter's luck is the stuff of legend. Shame that Severus Snape isn't so easily impressed by legends of any kind... Or is he?


**Title:** Luck Or Duck.  
**Author/Artist:** pekeleke  
**Prompt:** # 091: Harry has always been lucky. So why is he getting nowhere with trying to date Snape?  
**Prompt submitted by: ** alisanne  
**Pairing(s):** Severus Snape/Harry Potter.  
**Word Count/Art Medium:** +/- 6.5 K.  
**Rating:** PG 13  
**Warning(s):**  
**Disclaimer: **Harry Potter characters are the property of J.K. Rowling and Bloomsbury/Scholastic. No profit is being made, and no copyright infringement is intended.  
**Notes:** Thanks to alisanne for the inspiring prompt, I had great fun plotting this story. To onkoona for being generous enough to come to my rescue when I needed help. And to Carola for her lighting-fast beta work. She has single-handedly saved us all from my horrible punctuation, so I figure we all owe her. ;)  
**Summary:** Harry Potter's luck is the stuff of legend. Shame that Severus Snape isn't so easily impressed by legends of any kind... Or is he?

**Luck Or Duck.**

Harry Potter has a bee in his bonnet. This is a bee that has been there for a while now, bugging him constantly. Disrupting his sleep. Causing him untold distractions at the most importune moments. This is a bee the size of a Hungarian Horntail and as dangerous as the dragon itself. This is a bee that he can't possibly ignore. He doesn't want to ignore it, anyway. He wants to... embrace it.

Now the problem with _that_ is that trying to embrace this particular bee is dangerously tricky. Some would say it could actually be lethal, and they would probably be right. But then that's the way Harry's luck rolls. He hasn't yet been allowed to take the easy road with anything important, so he wasn't particularly shocked to find out that in this, the most crucial aspect of them all, his heart had decided not only to throw caution to the wind, but to ignore it altogether before leaping into the deep end and falling for the most impossible, the most irritating, the most stubborn and fierce bee of them all: Severus Snape. The owner of his heart.

Harry sighed with barely disguised longing as he looked rather wistfully towards the closed door of his beloved's chambers. He'd come down from his tower, armed with a dusty old bottle of Firewhisky that had cost him half a kidney, with the not so subtle intention of plying his bad-tempered bee with enough alcohol to leave it soft-eyed and uninhibited before jumping its deliciously sexy bones. Now it looked like his plan had been doomed from the start, since the painting on the other side of Severus' door had just informed him that his Slytherin colleague had gone out to dinner with Draco-ferret-face-Malfoy.

Coming all the way down here on a Friday night, no less, had been another huge failure. One more disappointment in a long list of worryingly unsuccessful attempts at wooing his intriguingly elusive bee. Who would have thought that Snape had actual plans on Friday evenings? Weren't such nights kind of sacred, anyway? They were meant to be enjoyed only by those who were either a part of a couple already or actively trying to "date" someone. The rest of the world was meant to spend these pesky evenings moping in self-pitying distress at their lack of... company. That's precisely what he tended to do himself every Friday night, unless Hermione was trying her hand at matchmaking, which she'd thankfully stopped doing altogether when he'd finally told her that he was sort of... obsessed... with Snape.

Now he glared peevishly at the potion's master door while the most unpleasant thought circled his mind: What if Severus' "dinner" with that smarmy blond wasn't as casual as he imagined? What if his irascible colleague wasn't as thoroughly lonely as he'd been expecting? Could that heartless Lothario have managed to discover his bee's deeply hidden charms before he, himself, became their willing slave? Was his sweet-cinnamon-pie currently in danger of being thoroughly debauched by the awfully depraved new head of the Ancient House of Malfoy?

The mere idea was so unexpected, so unbelievable, so completely bewildering that he gaped like a landed fish and his fingers cramped tightly around his awfully pricey bottle of Fire-whiskey. Suddenly weak-kneed, he leaned heavily against Severus' door and closed his eyes in an effort to ease their unbearable burning. It was no use, though. As soon as his eyelids closed he could "see" the most revolting and heart-destroying images of his precious Severus, coiled like a tall, willowy vine, around the smug shape of that Slytherin ferret. His eyes snapped open and he whimpered in the most abject distress, allowing himself to slide bonelessly down the door until he sat on the cold dungeon floor in a sickened agony of despair.

His trembling fingers uncorked the dusty bottle of the expensive whiskey that he'd bought with such high hopes, and he took a manly long swig of its fiery contents. That single mouthful wasn't strong enough to calm his bone-deep shivering, so he took another. And another, until all that undiluted alcohol churned in his gut and the pain ripping him apart had ceased to be as sharp and wounding as the slash of a sword and had become a little thorny prickle embedded so deeply inside his traitorous heart that he could still feel its burning every time he thought of Severus, _his_ Severus, chanting Malfoy's name in a litany of small, breathy moans, while that blond slut possessed his pale body with impunity.

It couldn't be actually happening, could it? No. No. It certainly couldn't be. He was turning a small molehill into a mountain. No one else loved his bee. He hadn't heard any rumours linking Severus with anyone or seen him entertaining so much as a fly in his private chambers. Why on Earth would that pervert, Malfoy, have suddenly decided that he wanted to bed his former professor, anyway? It made absolutely no sense... No. His tragically misunderstood bee was still as safely unattached as he was himself and he'd just chosen his moment with his usual lack of... wisdom. Severus was alone, blissfully alone, patiently waiting for his heroic self to sweep him off his feet, so that they both could finally snog each other senseless before going about the business of living happily-ever-after...

"Potter... Would you mind explaining to me what, exactly, are you doing sitting outside my door like an overgrown lost puppy?"

That irritated velvety voice caressed Harry's senses like the peeved buzzing of the sweet little insect that so thoroughly reminded him of the very man who now stood before him in all his greasy-haired and pale-skinned glory. He smiled at the looming potions master with the unreserved joy of the heavily drunk before slurring his answer:

"I came to share my special bottle with you, gorgeous. But you've been cavr... carv... cavorting with Malfoy. You shouldn't be friends with him on Fridays. Fridays are _mine_, Severus. I want to have you for dinner, too. I can hug you... no, cock... cook better than his elves, I swear!"

"Let me see that bottle, Potter. Did you drink _all_ of it on your own?" Severus asked in that dangerously low tone that enthralled Harry's senses. His mind shorted with the kind of breathless desire that he barely managed to hide when he was in full possession of his faculties and he squirmed against the door, looking dazedly into that intoxicating gaze and becoming fiercely aroused.

"I like your voice, Severus. I like the way it wraps around my senses like skin-warmed velvet... I like your ebony eyes, too. They are dark pools of untamed passion that could drown a man alive if he is not careful. I like the graceful lines of your long body. I like watching you move slowly, like a dancer on a stage, gliding seductively to the beat of a tune that only you can hear. I like..."

Those unfathomable dark eyes flashed with amusement.  
"My, my... You. Are. Drunk, Mr. Potter. Absolutely plastered... You are going to be thoroughly mortified tomorrow. I strongly advise you to go directly to bed, if you can manage the trip without killing your famously un-killable self in the process."

"Oh, I'd be happy to jump into any bed you want, Severus. All you have to do is point me in the right direction and I'll do the rest. I'm going to make you the happiest bee on the planet..."

"You'd jump into any bed I...?" The Slytherin flushed bright red. He repeated that one sentence in a choked little whisper that left him looking adorably stumped. Then his fine, elegant brows knotted together and he studied Harry's drooping form with unreadable intensity. "You are drunk out of your mind, aren't you? I advise you to shut up and go back to your rooms before you embarrass yourself further."

"Severus..."

"Refrain from using my given name and just... go, Potter. Please..."

Harry pouted and struggled to his feet, glaring drunkenly into those lovely dark eyes that were looking oddly pained.

"But I like your name, Sev'us. You never call your precious ferret-face anything other than Dra-co. This is all so annoying... Why can't you want me, instead? I'd be a better friend for you. He's a ruthless heart-breaker and you are too ugly for his taste, anyway. He'll use you until he gets bored and then kick you to the curb like useless garbage. He won't fall for your homely charms, I know he won't."

Severus' entire demeanour shifted from indulgent amusement to rigidly furious scorn:  
"I wouldn't "want" you if you paid me, Potter. I like choosing my friends carefully. It allows me to retain my social circle on a small, intimate, scale that's only open to those I'm particularly fond of."

Harry's befuddled mind whirled with aggravated indignation at his bee's unfriendly behaviour and he gaped with appalled disbelief:  
"Are you implying that you aren't fond of me? Because that can't be true. I am Harry Potter... Everyone is fond of me!"

Blatant disdain curled Severus' mouth in an ugly sneer and his arctic-cold voice could have frozen ice itself when he answered:  
"And that, right there, is precisely what has turned you into the unbearably conceited little buffoon that you have, so disappointingly, become, Harry Potter."

* * *

Harry groaned for the hundredth time that morning and dutifully drank another bitter dose of Hangover potion while Hermione tutted at him crossly from the other side of the table.

"What happened, Harry? I thought last night was _The Night_. I waited half the morning for your call before finally deciding to come here and get the details out of you. This doesn't look like the happy ending I was expecting, though... You went down to see Severus, didn't you? Tell me you didn't chicken out at the last second again."

"I didn't chicken out this time." Harry grumbled quietly, wishing for the floor to open up and swallow him whole when Hermione sat down across the table. Gosh! What kind of idiot tells his friends that he's going to "go for it" mere hours before upsetting his prickly bee beyond all reason? He'd been so certain of success that he'd never actually imagined that Severus would reject him for a richer, blonder version of the youthful ex-student literally gagging for the pleasure of being... stirred... back and forth by a true master. Now he'd have to own up to the whole embarrassing debacle. He'd have to endure his friend's loyalty-induced disparaging remarks about his bee's terrible temper, listen to their "expert" advice and suffer their instinctive pity on top of everything else...

"Did he reject you, Harry? Was he... awful... about it? Would you feel better if we challenge him to a magical duel over the slight he delivered to your pride?" Hermione's frantic questions forced his unwilling mind to remember the excruciatingly embarrassing chain of unfortunate events that had led him directly here: sprawled atop his kitchenette's table, seriously considering banishing himself all the way to the North Pole.

"Oh, god..." He whispered miserably, recalling exactly what happened with crystal-clear detail. "I told him that I like his passionate black eyes..."

Hermione beamed with delight.  
"That's brilliant, Harry! I don't understand why you're so glum if you managed to confess your..."

"I didn't confess anything, Herm. He wasn't there. He'd gone out to dinner with Malfoy, so I sat in front of his door and drank the entire bottle of that whiskey I bought for him."

"Oh, Harry..." Hermione gasped, stricken.

"He found you. Didn't he, mate? You were drunk like a skunk and messed the whole thing up. You made your pass at him all right, but you were so obviously plastered that he didn't believe a word you said. Am I right, Harry?"

He blushed bright red and took a tongue-scalding gulp of coffee in a useless attempt to drown the growing sense of abject disappointment that was setting huge stones in the pit of his stomach.

"It gets worse, Ron. I told him that Malfoy wouldn't appreciate his homely charms and that he should like me instead, because I'm Harry Potter and everyone is fond of me."

Ron became utterly still, blinking incredulously at him:  
"You called the git ugly to his face? You are so doomed, Harry..."

"I can't believe you were daft enough to boast about your popularity in front of that man, Harry James Potter! You couldn't have said anything more likely to rile him up if you'd planned it. Now he won't give you the time of day for months..."

Harry closed his green eyes as hard as he could, trying hard to keep his growing heartbreak to himself, but he was unable to swallow the raw-toned groan of sheer agony that betrayed his soul-deep devastation.  
"I know. I'm such an idiot... It's like I can't do anything right around him. Nothing I've tried so far has worked. Nothing! If I want to talk to him he is supervising detention. Or has urgent potions to brew. Or is out of the castle altogether.  
"The one time I sent him flowers the delivery owl was startled by the heavy bubbling of his potion and ended up dropping the whole bunch inside his cauldron. How was I to know that yellow tulips contain a whole bunch of whats-its-name that interacts adversely with lady-bug's desiccated wings? He'd been researching that experimental potion for six months. Six months, guys! And I destroyed it in a fraction of a second by means of a badly-timed flower bouquet... Of course he refused to believe that I never intended to ruin his blasted potion. He was so cross that Minerva ended up Stunning him to stop him from hexing me with only Godric knows what."

"That was ages ago, Harry. Things are much better now, aren't they? I saw the two of you walking together in Hogsmeade a few weeks back and he looked downright friendly. I know you said you were on patrol duty, but still... I thought things looked promising."

"That didn't last, Hermione. The following day I sat next to him for lunch and forgot that I'd just put a Dung Bomb that I'd confiscated in my pocket. The blasted thing punctured while we were eating our soup and the whole table ended up having to be evacuated. Severus was absolutely livid... he accused me of being an immature prankster."

Ron started laughing.  
"I remember that one. He was mad all right, but I still think that the time when you bought him that basket of strawberries had to be the most hilarious of all. Who would have guessed that "The Terror of Hogwarts" is allergic to strawberries? He kept taking a step back for every one that you took closer to him... The two of you looked like a dancing pair of ducks."

"Severus could have died, Ron. Died! There's nothing funny about that. When are you going to get it in your head that Harry is in love with the man, for Merlin's sake? Don't you remember how awful it was when all we did was fight? Have you forgotten how crushing it is to watch the person you love ignore you, day after day, when the only thing you want to do is hold them close?"

Silence filled the sunlit room as the three of them stared at one another with growing discomfort.  
"Hermione..."

"Don't you dare to _Hermione_ me, Ronald Weasley! This had to be said, OK? I don't think you are doing it on purpose, but you keep treating Harry's feelings as if they are some sort of awfully funny joke. Well, they aren't! This is bloody serious. Look at him, for goodness sake! When was the last time you saw Harry smile? When was the last time you heard him laugh properly? I bet you can't even remember the last time you heard him speak for more than two minutes without mentioning Severus in one way or another. We've got to help him, Ron, not enjoy his terrible misfortune."

Harry squirmed uncomfortably in the silence that followed. His best friend's contrite blue eyes settled over him thoughtfully and he desperately wanted to go back to bed and hide under his rumpled comforter for a century. This was turning out to be the worst morning of the year, and it had barely started...

"I'm sorry, mate. I think you are bat-shit crazy to want that git so much, but I don't really have a problem with you loving the man, I swear. I'm not laughing because I haven't accepted your feelings, Harry. I'm laughing because the two of you are rather entertaining. Snape is crazy about you, mate. He is always checking you out, whenever your back is turned, and you do exactly the same. It's kind of cute, really. I've never seen a more clueless pair... It's like watching a game of cat and mouse while knowing all along that they'll never catch one another because they are both equally daft."

Harry's eyes darkened with hurt and his voice shook with wounded emotion when he whispered back fiercely:  
"Severus is not crazy about me, Ron. He despises me. Something awful happens every time I come near him. I don't understand it. I've been lucky all my life... Everything I do, _everything_, ends up being a success except when it comes to him. It's like all the bad luck I never had ended up concentrating around my love life and now I'm dealing with all of it in one go..."

Hermione gaped:  
"Bad luck? That's the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard. You can't seriously tell me that you believe this kind of nonsense, Harry!"

"Of course I do! How else would you explain this mess? It's pretty obvious that I suck at romance. Look at what happened with Cho and Ginny. I've never managed to woo any of the people I've loved because I'm... unlucky in love. That has to be it. Gosh! I can't believe I never realized it before. I'm doomed to spend my life alone. First I lost my parents, then Sirius, I never managed to keep a girl for long..."

"That's because you don't actually _like_ girls, mate. Ginny would have stayed around if women turned you on, but they don't. That's all there is to it, Harry."

"No, she would have left me anyway, I'm sure of it." Harry shook his head in forlorn disagreement and offered a wan smile to his horrified friends "I appreciate you trying to make me feel better, but it's not necessary, Ron. I finally get it, you see? I'm supposed to be adored by the masses but not loved for myself. I won't ever have a family of my own. I won't ever have Severus. It's the price I have to pay for having the creepy ability of surviving the killing curse, isn't it?"

"Oh, Harry..."

"Hermione, please don't cry. I'm going to be all right, I swear. I'll find a way to accept this and be happy. I suppose I'm luckier than most already. Who, in their right mind, would chose love over the ability to survive the Avada Kedavra? I know I have no right to feel cheated. It just doesn't feel like such a good deal right now, that's all."

* * *

Harry's new awareness of the dismal curse that affected his love-life dampened his formerly vibrant exuberance to the point of worrying everyone around him. After the awful debacle with Severus he'd stuttered a raw-toned apology and then refused to come anywhere near the man, no matter how insistently his thoroughly unlucky stars attempted to rub salt into his still bleeding wound by making sure that Severus became uncharacteristically interested in the reasons behind his appalling episode of "drunken self-pity".

The more Harry retreated, the more puzzled Severus seemed to become, and every interaction between them now brought unnecessary anguish to Harry's hopelessly enthralled heart. His fiercely determined bee paid him more attention than ever and he couldn't take the stress of realizing that he'd gotten the closeness he'd been so desperately seeking as soon as he stopped pushing the other man for it.

Days turned into weeks and, no matter how hard he tried, Harry couldn't forget his new and unwelcome discovery. His friends tried to talk him out of his heartbreaking conviction, but the more he thought about it, the more entrenched he became in his certainty that he was fated to be alone.

February came and went, leaving behind the worst of the ailing winter, and March blessed them all with a dismally long string of rainy days. Severus began trailing him around the castle. No matter where Harry hid, the Slytherin would eventually find him, until he decided to stop hiding altogether and they developed a strange routine in which Harry retreated to the staff-room's window-seat while Severus sat for hours on the fireside chair, grading assignments in silence and giving him quiet company with never-ending patience.

The more time his bee spent seeking him out, the more Harry pondered about the man's inexplicable desire to be closer until he came to the conclusion that, as soon as he'd become aware of the futility of his hopeless dreams, the powers that be had decided to torture him further by giving him tantalizingly cruel glimpses of the kind of companionship that he so desperately wanted. His life sucked and he hated being reminded of how "lucky" he'd always been. He'd accomplished the um-accomplishable. He was rich, attractive, famous. He had the kind of blessed existence that many men would kill to have, and he would gladly exchange it all for a single chance at living in forgotten obscurity with Severus Snape.

Laughing harshly, he closed his weary eyes and attempted to forget the fact that today was St. Patrick's day. He'd joined his friends for a pint at the pub earlier in the day and tried to laugh at Seamus' loud jokes without success. Everywhere he looked there were hopeful men and women praying for a single flash of genuine good luck, and he couldn't manage to look at them without feeling a deep and shameful envy.

He wanted to believe what they believed. Wanted to scour the rain-washed fields until he found that all-important four-leaf clover. He wanted to hold tightly onto a fragile shamrock and imagine that it had the actual power to change his lonely fate... but he couldn't do that, of course. He knew better than to pin his hopes on wearing a green hat and drinking emerald beer. He was aware that magic was real and knew, without a shadow of doubt, that someone's existence was going to be touched by it in this day meant for random blessings. But he also knew that magic had already been as generous with him as it was going to be.

He had all the luck he wanted in every single aspect of his life, except the most important one, and that couldn't be changed. Pining his future hopes on a piece of greenery seemed utterly futile to a man who could conjure a million shamrocks with a disheartened wand-wave. No. Luck wouldn't be visiting him today of all days. Why would it? Today was the chance for the unlucky to be blessed, not another opportunity for Lady Luck to keep showering material gain over people like him. He didn't need more fortune, anyway. He was both filthy rich and annoyingly famous. He was already adored by the masses, had obtained the job he'd always wanted and been lucky enough to fall in love with a wonderful man, even if nothing could ever come out of it...

Hiding in the relative tranquillity of the staffroom, Harry sat on the hearth's flagstones and sighed woefully under his breath, twirling the ancient horseshoe that he'd found outside the door between fire-warmed fingers. The metal sported that blue-tainted pattern so typical of rusted copper, and the nails that had once helped keep it fast to its owner's hoof had either fallen away or been removed on purpose, leaving behind gaping holes that looked reddish-gold whenever the firelight shone through them.

"Legend says that any man able to claim having genuinely _found_ an old horseshoe on this particular day will be blessed with good luck, Potter."

Harry's gaze shifted towards the door, settling dully over the tall, dark haired man leaning casually against it.  
"I didn't find it, professor. Someone else forgot it here and I just picked it up."

Severus snorted, taking a couple of steps towards him in order to study the old charm with a small, pleased smile.  
"Semantics. This is a fine talisman, Mr. Potter. I can feel its magical power thrumming around you already. It's just typical of you to stumble upon good fortune."

"Whatever it's meant to do, I don't think it'll work for me. There isn't enough luck in the world to give me the one thing I want." Harry whispered quietly, placing the horseshoe on the armrest of the closest chair and turning away from it with a heartbroken sigh.

"I don't know what's gotten into you, Potter, but it's driving me spare... Whatever your problem is, you should try to solve it, instead of moping all over the school like a forlorn little waif."

"No one can fight against fate, professor. Banging my head against what's already written in the stars will be ultimately pointless..." Harry whispered softly, resting his wobbly chin against the tops of his knees and forcing his burning gaze to remain firmly fixed on the fire.

Soft footsteps brought the Slytherin closer and the old springs of the fireside chair groaned faintly under Severus' weight.  
"Have you been drinking again? I haven't heard you spout anything this ridiculous since the night I caught you hugging an empty bottle on my doorstep."

Harry cringed, turning his head around to stare ferociously into those frowning black eyes.  
"I already apologized for that mistake. It's beyond rude of you to keep bringing it up all the time."

Severus leaned forwards until his potion-tainted fingers curled gently around Harry's chin. He held onto it firmly, forcing the young Gryffindor to maintain eye-contact when he would have turned his face away once more.  
"I know you apologized, Harry. But I've been thinking lately that I never did. You have the excuse of having been under the influence when you spoke out of turn, but I... I was fully sober when I failed to grant you the courtesy of ignoring your drunken blunders. You were hurting for some reason and I failed to recognize it. I genuinely regret having called you a ''conceited little buffoon'' that night. I was thoroughly out of line, and I'm begging your forgiveness."

Harry blinked with increasing distress, feeling his heart break anew when confronted with Severus' contrite words. A few weeks ago he'd have given half his fortune to be on the receiving end of this man's softly whispered concern. Tonight, though, it broke him. It wounded him with the realization that he would never have... more. This would be the closest he'd ever get to his bee's courageous heart. He'd never get to see those ebony-black eyes smile into his own with growing arousal. He'd never lie in the circle of these arms. Never know the delight of having these pale fingers trace the line of his jaw before curling at the nape of his neck, readying to draw him into the kind of kiss that he'd never have outside his dreams...  
"You don't have to apologize, professor. I'm the one who got drunk. You didn't do anything wrong."

"You used to call me Severus all the time... I miss your cheeky boldness, Potter. I hate seeing you so... sad."

Harry pulled away, freeing his trapped chin from the Slytherin's burning touch. He turned around once more and forced himself to stare blindly into the fire, allowing the awful silence to return. Severus didn't move away. Didn't speak. Didn't do... anything. He sat as still as a statue, gazing thoughtfully at his averted profile. Harry could feel that intent gaze burn a scorching trail of focused indecision over his stubbled cheek and wondered what thoughts crowded his bee's mind at that very instant. It was obvious to him that Severus wanted something. He had come searching for him, that much was patently clear, but he also seemed uncharacteristically reluctant to speak his mind.

"Are you in love with me, Potter?"

The brutally direct question shattered the tension-filled quietude with the undeniable harshness of a perfectly delivered Crucio. Harry jerked around, wide-eyed, and stared into Severus' black gaze with startled vulnerability.  
"I... I... Why would you ask such a question? Isn't Draco-bloody-Malfoy pandering to your every wish on a weekly basis? I'm fed up of seeing his skinny arse all over the school every time I blink!"

"Draco approached me months ago for a potions mentorship, Harry. I agreed to take on the role privately, since the school doesn't have the means to support a fully-fledged apprenticeship program. Our meetings are strictly professional. I would have told you that sooner if you'd asked."

The unexpected explanation had the power to take Harry's breath away. His pulse became a drumbeat that pounded against his veins like an stampeding horse and he felt paralysed by a deep sense of exhilarated relief. His eyes fixed on Severus' unusually open expression and it was all he could do to remain seated where he was, utterly transfixed by the sight of his usually cold bee gazing down at him with the kind of expression that he'd dreamed plenty of times but had never actually seen on that pale and narrow face.

"I didn't know how to ask. I've been so jealous of Draco that I'd hardly slept a wink since that horrible night. I convinced myself that the two of you were together. I thought there was nothing I could offer you that would make you look at me, instead. I've never been lucky in love, you see? That's why I kept messing everything up whenever I tried to get your attention."

Severus seemed to sag right where he sat. His tall body unravelled like a loosened spring and he flopped back against the backrest of his chair. His eyes closed, as if in pain, and he started laughing quietly to himself.  
"I can't believe how stupid we've been! Oh, gosh, Minerva will never let me live this down..."

"I don't understand..."

Softened dark eyes settled over his confused face in the next second, studying his puzzled expression in the growing silence. Then Severus edged forwards until his long fingers brushed the cold metal of the abandoned horseshoe.  
"Luck, Harry... I believe we are both being blessed with it, at long last. As strange as it may sound, it appears that we have the same kind of reservations about love. All of my affections have always been unrequited, you see? I've never been blessed with... reciprocation, so I wrestle with my emotions and struggle to keep them hidden for as long as I can. I despise going through the heartbreak associated with rejection, so when I realized that I've gone ahead and fallen in love with the bloody Saviour of the Wizarding World I began cursing myself for a fool a thousand times a day."

Harry sat bolt upright, literally flummoxed by the very words he'd been dreaming of hearing for so long that they'd become the embodiment of his every desire.  
"Wait. Wait, Severus. Did you just say that you... love me, too?"

Pale cheekbones flushed bright red as Severus' long-fingered hand rose to card through his long hair with trembling gracelessness, in a gesture that brimmed with such uncharacteristic nervousness that Harry's heart melted with shameless adoration.  
"I'm besotted, Harry. Enthralled. I've become your dammed slave, if you must know. That's why it hurt me so much when I thought you were pranking me all the time. Then, that night when you were drunk, you started saying the most wonderful things. I'm not sure you can remember, but..."

Harry's breath hitched. He felt dizzy with a sort of bubbly joy.  
"I told you that I like your voice. And your eyes. I said I love the way you move, like a dancer..."

Severus closed his eyes as if guarding off an attack. His pale face acquired a delicate pink hue and his chest began rising and falling to the uneven rhythm of obvious agitation.  
"Yes. You... you showed some sort of interest in me, for the first time in my memory, and I started struggling against the urge to ravish you there and then. I told myself that you were drunk. I was frantically trying to get you away, before I ended up surrendering the last shred of decency I possess, when you made that awful comment about how my homely charms wouldn't be enough to attract a man like Draco... I was crushed. Utterly crushed. I went from Heaven to Hell in the time it took to blink and ended up lashing out. I was horrible to you, Harry."

"Oh, Severus... I didn't mean it like that. I had drunk myself into a stupor out of bitter jealousy and I was trying to tell you that Malfoy wouldn't stay with you for the long run. He's a heart-breaker. A shallow little beast who measures the worth of a man by either the size of his wallet or his physical beauty. I never meant to imply that I find you anything less than heavenly. I love you, warts and all, I swear."

Severus' dark eyes glowed with increasing self-confidence.  
"I began to suspect something along those lines soon after that night. You became so withdrawn that I couldn't understand what was happening with you. You wouldn't prank me any more. Wouldn't even look at me, for the most part, and it felt as if my brusque words had hurt you to the core..."

"That's when you started trying to get my attention, didn't you? You used to come to the staffroom all the time..."

"Yes, but you never gave me an opening and I wasn't certain of your feelings. You've been driving me spare with all your moping, Potter."

"But now you are here. You came to find me, didn't you? You must have known that I..."

"No. I didn't." Severus whispered quietly. "I was talking to Filius and Minerva when Albus' portrait interrupted our meeting with his usual shenanigans. He annoyed us into playing that ridiculous "_Luck or Duck"_ game that he invented ages ago... Each player conjures a single shot of duck-shaped confetti and tries to catch as much as possible in the palm of his hands. Eventually everyone is left with a handful of colourful "ducks" that mark you as unlucky, but... every now and then something else appears among the colourful confetti, something magical. Something that was never intended to be there and yet it shows up, anyway. Something with the power to change anyone's luck in this particular day..."

"You got that, didn't you, Severus? What was it?"

Harry felt as exited as a child on Christmas morning as he watched Severus' long fingers reach inside the left pocket of his robe and come out with a small shamrock held reverently between thumb and forefinger.  
"A clover. A real, four-leaf clover."

The moment hung with the dazzling beauty of magic as their eyes connected in the lengthening silence. Harry's heart was in his throat and he was pretty dammed sure that Severus' must be too, judging by the nervous expression that had appeared on his narrow face.  
"So you found luck among your ducks and rushed all the way here..." Harry finally whispered, desperately praying for his own horseshoe to deliver him the joy that he could so clearly see beginning to unfurl in the increasingly hopeful depths of Severus' gorgeous eyes.

"I had to try. I had to, Harry. I wouldn't have been able to find peace unless I... tried."

Wild elation thrummed through Harry's veins like the rush of flooding water. He could not contain his happiness and ended up whooping as wholeheartedly as the child he used to be would have done. Directly across from him Severus laughed too, leaning forwards in his chair in order to mess up Harry's hair with unmistakable fondness. The rich sound of his bee's joy curled around the Gryffindor's heart like a thick vine, and he looked exultantly upwards, towards this wonderful man who meant the world to him.  
"Does this mean that you want us to be together, Severus? Openly, I mean, like a real couple?"

"I... yes, Harry. Of course. I have no reason to hide my love like a thief. I'd be honoured to become your acknowledged romantic partner, if you'll have me."

Harry smiled, reaching out to pull the small shamrock off Severus' loose hold before pushing himself onto his knees. The gentle hand that had been carding through his wild hair fell away, coming to rest quietly on his shoulder, and he felt those slender fingertips curl slightly against his jumper when he threaded the fragile clover through Severus' dark locks, looping the soft stalk behind a delicate ear.

Easing back he looked at the stern creature before him, marvelling at the beauty he beheld. Severus might not be everyone's idea of loveliness, but he embodied everything Harry had ever desired in a partner.  
"Of course I'll have you, Severus. There's no one I would want more. You should see yourself right now. You look..." He halted mid-sentence, searching frantically in his mind for the right words to describe so much perfection while his hand traced the faint blush that coloured the Slytherin's cheekbones with delicate tenderness.

"Utterly ridiculous, I'd imagine. If you ever let anyone know that I allowed you to loop a clover behind my ear, like some kind of Hufflepuff hippie, I'll..."

"Oh, sush!... You look like my very own, man-sized, lucky charm. I must be the most fortunate man on Earth. I found the greatest treasure in the world, and I'm going to protect it with all the strength I posses for as long as we both shall live..."

"Must you be so mushy, Potter?" Severus groaned and Harry kissed his lips closed with a small chuckle of joy. His bee hummed with contentment, making his heart soar with the wonder of feeling Severus' own mouth unfurl open beneath his, granting him entry into the strong body of the man he'd been coveting for a veritable eternity. Their tongues tangled, their arms entwined and, in the peaceful quiet of Hogwarts' staff room, the Saviour of the Wizarding World finally embraced his thoroughly enthralled bee while the fire crackled loudly inside the grate. The afternoon slid into evening with a seamless lack of artifice, and the planet kept on turning as if nothing of great importance had just happened. Yet the future had changed irrevocably for the two men who'd been lucky enough to reach their happily-ever-after with the help of just a little pinch of St. Patrick's ancient magic.

_**The End**_


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